Are home phones an endangered species?

Ever find yourself wondering whether it's worth it to keep and, perhaps more importantly, pay for that home phone line?

Even though a majority of Canadian homes have at least one cellphone, most are not completely abandoning their land lines. Statistics Canada says 78 per cent of Canadian households had cellphones in 2010, up from 74 per cent two years earlier. Households with land line phones stood at 67 per cent last year, down from 83 per cent in 2008.

But the land line versus cellphone question is one many 20-something Canadians don't even ponder.

"Having that land line, for me, is sort of a waste of money," says James Drummond, "because if people want to reach me and they want to get a hold of me, it's going to be after 10 p.m. before I can even check (messages) half the time."

The 27-year-old who lives in Ottawa adds: "Having a cellphone means people can easily access me . . . "

That Statistics Canada study found 13 per cent of households were comprised of cellphone users only with no land line, up from eight per cent in 2008.

Among households led by people between the ages of 18 and 34, that proportion was 50 per cent, rising from 34 per cent two years earlier.

A smaller proportion — 3.6 per cent — were using a non-traditional Internet- or cable-based services exclusively for their phone access, while 16 per cent were using a combination of services that did not include traditional land line phones.

Alan K'necht, a Toronto-based business consultant specializing in technology trends, says there are a number of reasons why people cling to their wire line phones — some of them practical, others not so much. "It's entrenched, it's a tradition," he says of the home phone.

But it's a dying tradition, K'necht adds.

"The icon of the phone on the wall in the kitchen is going to be disappearing very soon across Canada." he says.

For many, particularly those with children, it seems necessary to have a family phone line that is accessible to everyone. K'necht counts himself in that camp but anticipates changes once his kids are old enough to have their own cellphones.

"I am getting closer and closer to contemplating getting rid of (the home phone)," he said.

For younger adults without families and active social lives, it can be more economical and efficient to have just one mobile phone that goes with you everywhere, K'necht says.

"If you're a single individual living in an apartment, and never in the apartment, what's the point (of having a home phone line)?" K'necht says.

Pamela Rutledge, director of the Boston-based Media Psychology Research Center, says age can be an important factor in how willing someone is to give up their land line phone.

"If you grew up with a cellphone as 'the phone,' you think of it in a different way than someone who grew up with 'the phone' and then the cellphone," she says. "Some of it is the cognitive shift in how you define something or how you define its use."

Kyla Copp, 37, also of Ottawa, says she's been using cellphones exclusively for the last 13 years.

"The decision, at the time, was made because I could only afford one (phone) or the other, and I had a car that would break down regularly, so I felt a cellphone was a necessity for my safety," she says.

"I still don't use a land line because I just don't need it."

Still, some may see wireline phones as more reliable than wireless or Internet-based phone services, and K'necht says this view has merit.

He recalls the electricity blackout of August 2003 that affected about 50 million people in northeastern North America, including much of Ontario. Land-line phones were the only reliable source of communication for many during that ordeal as a lack of power shut down cellphone towers and cut off access to the Internet.

Leslie Chan, a professor of new-media studies at the University of Toronto, agrees.

"The land line is very secure, is very reliable," he says. " A few years ago when all the power went out, the land lines remained functional. I think in an emergency situation, we still can rely on the land line far more so than we can on wireless."

K'necht also notes most major cellphone-service providers in Canada have time limits before extra billing applies on usage on weekdays during normal business hours. This is an impediment for some in switching to a wireless-only life, he says.

In the U.S., unlimited calling plans are more common, which K'necht says is a factor in why more people there — more than 25 per cent, according to a U.S. study — have gone exclusively wireless.

While many people get lured in by "bundling" deals offered by Canadian carriers selling both home-based and mobile-phone plans to the same customer, K'necht says it's usually cheaper to ditch the land line altogether, despite some of the extra-airtime charges one might incur with their cellphones.

Drummond, however, doesn't think his phone status will change as he gets older.

"I think even if I were to have kids . . . if the kid's school called, the best idea would be to phone my cellphone anyway because I'll be at work or someplace. I just think cellphones are a more readily available means of communication and land lines have just sort of fallen off the map in their usefulness."

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